What Sets Superteams Apart from the Rest

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Communication, Business, Harvard, Strategy, Business/management, Teams, Business/marketing, Management, Leadership, Finance, Marketing, Hbr, Economics, Innovation, Business/entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship

4.3 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2026

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A small percentage of teams perform exceptionally well and have fun while doing it. And the secret to their success isn't innate talent. It's the way they work together. Ron Friedman, psychologist and the founder of Superteams, Inc., has studied the data on these high-performing groups across industries and identified the key leadership behaviors that drive sustained outperformance--from asking questions people often avoid to creating continuous feedback loops. Friedman is the author of the HBR article "How to Build a Superteam That Keeps Getting Better," and the book Superteams: The Science and Secrets of High-Performing Teams.

Transcript

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0:00.0	On May 20th, join me at HBR's annual Leadership Summit with masterclasses, interviews with the CEOs of AT&T and Mattel,
0:08.9	and an interactive case discussion led by Harvard Business School professor Kareem Likani.
0:13.7	This all-virtual day will give you practical frameworks to lead with purpose and strengthen culture across your organization.
0:20.2	To learn more, go to h HBR.org slash Leadership Summit.
0:23.8	See you there.
0:39.2	I'm Alison Beard.
0:42.2	I'm Adi Ignatius, and this is the HBR Ideacast.
0:53.9	All right, Adi, tell me about the best team that you ever worked on.
0:56.8	What were the people like? How was the dynamic? What made it great?
1:02.3	So it's actually a team that you have been on, and that is Harvard Business Review's virtual events team.
1:09.0	And it sort of started, probably during COVID, we started doing virtual events and this all-volunteer army came together.
1:11.2	And the espri was incredible.
1:15.6	It was really, in addition to everybody else's normal job, but it came together.
1:18.8	Our focus was clear, and it was so much fun.
1:23.9	There were glitches, but it worked, and the team spirit was the best I've ever experienced.
1:29.3	That is giving me chills because I actually think the same thing. My favorite team is our events team here at HBR. I feel like we're all united toward a goal. We're trying new
1:34.6	things. We're working to get better. And we all really, really trust each other. So our guest
1:39.2	today might call the team that we're talking about a super team. These are groups that don't just perform
1:45.3	well together, but they also enjoy themselves while doing it. He studied a bunch of them and
1:50.6	identified the traits they have in common, as well as the leadership behaviors that allow them
1:54.7	to become as good as they are. Essentially, the ingredients to create and maintain a super team
1:59.8	at your own organization.
	...

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